I recently came across this interesting article from the NY Times regarding San Francisco’s Public School System. Parents in San Francisco, like Denver, have many options when it comes to their children’s education. However, if parents there are choosing public school, the student-assignment process is complex and flawed. The Superintendent hopes to replace the current system with an alternative one but this doesn’t seem to be easing the mind of many parents. Read the article below to see what I mean.

New Plan on School Selection, but Still Discontent by Jesse McKinley

After years of complaints from parents, the San Francisco Unified School District has just taken a serious step toward revamping its well-meaning but labyrinthine student-assignment system, which decides the educational homes for tens of thousands of children.

The current system — designed to meet the terms of a settlement in a long-fought federal desegregation case — involves a complicated computer algorithm that creates student “profiles,” using various economic and educational factors, with the aim of sending students of different backgrounds to the same schools.

It has resulted instead in more segregation and has aggravated parents to a point where efforts to manipulate the system have become endemic.

This month, the school district rolled out a new plan. It is designed to more closely consider proximity between a student’s home and classroom. It is to be applied to every child headed for kindergarten.

And once again, no one seems completely happy.

“I’ll be honest with you; we’re really frustrated,” said Michelle Menegaz, the chairwoman of the Parent Advisory Council, which was established by the school board and has made recommendations on how to fix the assignment system. “We’re really concerned that what’s being put forward now doesn’t reflect the best of our research and it doesn’t reflect the needs the community expressed.”

What everyone agrees on is that the current system is broken. In a quarter of San Francisco’s public schools, more than 60 percent of the student body is of a single race, and academic performance by black, Latino and Samoan students continues to lag. In theory, parents choose up to seven schools for their child, but 20 percent of kindergarteners get none of their parents’ choices.

All of which has been a boon for private schools; San Francisco has a larger percentage of students in private schools — nearly 3 out of 10 — than any other major city in the state. Others families simply move away.

And while advocates of the new plan say it offers more flexibility and simplicity, whether that will be the case is unclear.

At a school board meeting on Wednesday, Commissioner Jill Wynns seemed perplexed as to whether the plan would meet the board’s elusive goals of diversity and transparency.

“If you don’t know it can be done,” Ms. Wynn said of the redesign team, “how can we trust it will be done?”

Such questions are ringing in the ears of parents throughout the city, especially those — like this reporter — who have a child entering kindergarten in the fall.

Here is how the current system works: Let’s say a 5-year-old — we’ll call him Jake, like my son — wants to go to kindergarten. His parents fill out an application and list seven schools they prefer.

The more desirable schools get more applications than they have seats; in some cases that ratio is 20 to 1. That’s where the Diversity Index comes in. Known as “the lottery,” the index uses five factors to determine a child’s profile: poverty level, socio-economic status, English-language proficiency, academic achievement and, for upper grades, the quality of the student’s previous school.

Once that profile is built, the child is placed in one of his selected schools, in a class of students whose collective profile is as different from his own profile as possible. As each child is added, the class profile is adjusted, and more “most different” children are placed. Students living near their selected schools are considered first. The district also gives preference to children who have siblings at the same school and apply on time.

But there is no guarantee that a child will get in a selected school. And once the lottery has filled all the slots, those soon-to-be kindergartners who get into none of their choices are offered a place in a school with open positions. Proximity to their home and transportation are considered.

Designed to be race-neutral, the system has instead been widely criticized as too complex and opaque. “It’s all magic and voodoo,” Ms. Menegaz said, only half joking.

Next page of article

Interview Series – No. 3

Parent: The parent we spoke to for this interview moved, with her family, from the suburbs to the city of Denver. Once settled in the city, she transferred her son from a faith-based school to a Denver Public School (DPS) that possessed much of the criteria they were looking for when thinking about the ideal educational setting for their son.

Q: Describe your transitional experience or scenario.

A: This family moved from a Colorado suburb to Denver last year. Their son had attended private preschool there. They moved to Denver with little time to research schools though both parents work in the Education sector and are pro public schools. They enrolled their son in their neighborhood DPS but learned an after-school program wasn’t available for him.  Before and after-school care was of extreme importance because both parents worked full-time. They researched a few other schools (both public and faith-based) nearby and none of them had after-school care available. Finally, they decided on a faith-based school that was warm and welcoming of working parents yet traditional in its educational philosophy. It was not their ideal school but their son was content for the time being. A few weeks later at a work function, the mother met several elementary school principals from DPS. She spoke to one in particular that stood out from the rest and began telling her about their family’s school dilemma.  This principal invited her on a tour of the school to see if it might be a good fit for her son. While visiting the school, she was immediately impressed with everything about the school, including the programs it offered and the principal who helped transform the school several years ago. It had the diversity they were looking for and offered programs that focused on the individual learner and his/her needs. Their son was granted a spot in both the before and after-school care program. This was just the type of school they had been looking for, so one week later, their son started Kindergarten there.  They couldn’t be more thrilled with the decision they made.

Q: What circumstances led to this decision?

A: First, a job transfer for both parents brought them to Denver. Second, a work function that offered her the opportunity to converse with several DPS principals initiated the move from a faith-based school to a DPS that offered an environment more in sync with what they envisioned for their son.

Q: What school or type of school do they attend now?

A: A DPS that they love! The Kindergartener had a wonderful year.  His teacher really “tapped” into the needs and interests of all the children and made learning fun!  The family believes this school to be a beautiful place that is representative of the “real world” and embraces people of varying racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. As a former principal, the mother knew as soon as she met the principal of this school that she was creating something special there. The principal had a vision and a plan to achieve this vision.  The parents got that vibe while touring the school and seeing first hand exactly what the principal had initially told her.  They were reassured once again that this was the ideal school for their son for many reasons including attention to the individual learner and that teachers truly engage the children in learning.

Q: How do the educational experiences differ?

A: The faith-based school was a good school but it was more traditional and lacked a diverse student population. The DPS school that they chose focuses on the “whole” child and his or her interests and needs. Students are actively engaged and diversity is celebrated.

Q: What advice can you give that will help others when going through a similar experience?

A: As a former principal, the mother has visited many, many schools. She feels, like many of us, that you know right away when visiting a school whether or not you like what it has to offer.  According to her, it’s just instinct. It’s so important to visit the schools to see what they are truly about rather than learning about them only on paper. She suggests being clear about what you are looking for in a school. There is much more to the success of a school that goes beyond test scores (it’s not all about the test scores).